


Pillow Talk

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pillow Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:59:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3215063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has been looking at Sherlock for <i>ages</i>, it feels like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pillow Talk

Sherlock sleeps soundly through to the morning, when it is properly light outside. John has been gazing at him, lost in his own thoughts and wondering about Sherlock’s dreams--what would a man like Sherlock Holmes dream about?--since the early hours of the day. John has been looking at him since the night bade farewell and ushered in a creeping, gray dawn. 

John has been looking at Sherlock for _ages_ , it feels like. 

He’s managed to sleep a few scant hours, falling into REM sleep at least twice he guesses, as he feels just rested enough. John is unsure of why he awoke; Sherlock he has come to find does not snore, nor does he fuss much in slumber. The bed is comfortable--opulent and plush, more like it--and cradles John’s body just so; he’s not confused by the unfamiliar surroundings, or unsettled by the fact that he finds himself with a new partner in bed. 

John thinks that perhaps he woke up because he simply wanted to look at Sherlock.

And look at Sherlock is what he continues to do. 

It’s a bit of a surprise when Sherlock shifts minutely--John has been staring at him for so _long_ \--and his face twitches, his eyes darting beneath paper-thin eyelids, and the moment lengthens and holds like this is a long-awaited revelation for John’s eyes. It’s a few breaths before Sherlock peeks his right one open and fixes his gaze on John. Sherlock is on his side, left hand fisted beneath the pillow, arm bent at a ninety-degree angle, his right arm tucked up, the hand clenching around his bicep. It’s an uncomplicated position, so ordinary; it doesn’t align with Sherlock’s otherworldly persona. John had expected him to sleep like a disaster, flung out and restlessly moving the entire night through.

Then again, Sherlock does so love to throw him for a loop.

John’s a little humbled now, to know that this is how Sherlock sleeps. He raises his brows a fraction, to translate to Sherlock that he knows he’s been seen, as though to say, _alright there?_

“I felt you watching me,” comes a sleep-thickened, impossibly deep accusation. The sounds of it hits John hard in the solar plexus. “Why are you watching me?”

“Because I can,” and John thinks on that for a moment, his eyes darting around as he figures out just how he feels about that, about the knowledge that he’s able to just look for as long as he likes.

“A bit creepy,” Sherlock concludes and closes his eye, wriggles down a bit more into the pillow, shuffles just a few centimeters towards John on the bed. 

“You’re one to talk,” John huffs and Sherlock smiles, runs his tongue over his top row of teeth.

John wants to ask Sherlock how he feels about the previous night because John wants Sherlock to ask _him_ how he feels about last night; he’s never been this way in bed before, never been nervous to say how he feels. Any other situation, if the sex hadn’t been great, he’d say it; if he was bonkers for his bedfellow, he’d say it. Problem is, John has never before made a mutually-agreed-upon decision and gone to bed with his best friend.

This is very much a first for John Watson. Waking up to stubble and wide shoulders, an Adam’s Apple and a cock, well, that’s rather new to him as well. Though this isn’t the bit that he’s nervous about, not that he’s in bed with a man, but that the one good and true and right thing in his life--Sherlock Holmes--has now been sex-compromised. 

Sex changes _everything_. John knows this. Even in his youth, with his one night stands and his flings, he knew he couldn’t go back to the way anything had been between him and any of his partners pre-intercourse. That’s just what sex _did_ ; it put a different lens on everything. 

He’s been through so much _change_ in the past few months he thought he’d somehow managed to finally _get over it_ , this thing with Sherlock. John should have known that wouldn’t take, that things wouldn’t just go away; Sherlock is ever-fascinating and ever-present in John’s mind, the only thing that had gotten him out of bed for a good, long while there. Sherlock is danger and excitement and fear and everything good in John’s life; no, those feelings weren’t just going to disappear because John had wanted to rationalize them away.

It’s one thing to accept that he has very real feelings for Sherlock, but now he’s awake and in bed with his sex-disheveled and sleep-ruffled best friend. There had always been the attraction between them, the lingering glances and touches and after they’d gone away to Baskerville, John’s feelings had begun to spin rapidly out of his control and beyond the reach of his rational mind. He couldn’t contain the want, couldn’t ignore the need, can not possibly justify the expansion of his chest and the swelling of his heart to be anything other than love.

There’s a welling in his stomach, in his chest, in his damned _head_ ; he’s in love with Sherlock Holmes. Truly, properly. He’s in love with someone to whom he’s been committed for years, someone who completes him, challenges and accepts him.

John’s a bit dizzy; he takes a deep, steadying breath and does a casual sweep of Sherlock’s bedding-covered body.

Sherlock looks _gorgeous_ in the morning, John thinks. He looks _devastating_.

It’s nearly too much, realizing it all in the moment. John swallows and sucks in a quick breath, passes a hand over his eyes and tries very hard to center himself. He directs his gaze to the ceiling for a moment and then looks back at Sherlock, who is looking at him with an expression of such pure relaxation that it helps unwind John just a bit.

Then Sherlock smiles at him and the tension drains out of John’s shoulders.

It’s Sunday, John realizes, and Sherlock is making no move to get out of bed. Sherlock is instead stroking John’s calf with his foot. 

It’s something like bliss, being in bed and just lounging, luxuriating in the simplicity of being close to someone you care about. Yes, John could get used to this, Sherlock warm and pliant and smiling, but he doesn’t dare to hope, not just yet.

Sherlock hums, eyes remaining closed, “You sleep on your stomach.”

“Sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” It seems Sherlock Holmes knows many things, but he doesn’t know how John sleeps when in a proper bed. “When you’re thoroughly shagged out?” 

That eye pops open again, the iris glittering with mischief and a laugh punches out of John’s chest. “Yep, that did the trick.” They rest beside one another, glancing and glancing away for long minutes, until their gaze holds, the both of them wearing bashful little knowing half-smiles.

“Last night,” Sherlock begins, with a prim little lick at the corner of his mouth.

John swallows thickly. This conversation has to happen; the integral conversation, where they acknowledge that they’ve had sex, that it’s changed things between them. And while the two of them lying naked in a disheveled bed is fairly representative of what has transpired between them, John needs Sherlock to confirm it for him, tell him that becoming intimate was the right thing for them, that Sherlock’s feelings mirror his own. John _needs_ to hear it, for the sake of his sanity. 

Christ, he is completely besotted. “Yes.”

“We slept together.”

“Had gathered that, yeah.” Giddiness and nerves swirl to life in the pit of his stomach. 

“I’m _very_ glad we did,” Sherlock says, both of his eyes opening to reveal a tender, sky-storm gaze. 

John’s cheek jumps in a half-grin, and he knows his entire body is flushed beneath the sheets. Relief floods through him, instantaneously. He feels thrown for the most wonderful of loops. “ _Very_?”

“Very,” Sherlock confirms and stretches out a bit. “And finally.”

John sucks his lips into his mouth and reels in the smile that threatens to overtake his lips. He’s feeling properly and completely besotted, how he might have felt back at university when a bed-tousled night guest would have admitted that they wanted more than a one-off. John feels so incredibly young, unmarred by disastrous romance and war and tragedy, that he feels his chest expand. He feels as though if he weren’t weighed down by the bedclothes he’d float right up to the ceiling. 

This is bonkers. He’s _happy_. “So when you say finally, does that imply that this is something you’d thought would happen all along?”

Sherlock smiles, affectionate, just a little bit exasperated. “Of course.”

“Saw right through me from the beginning?”

Sherlock makes a show of considering his words. “More like… knew you’d come around.”

John can’t help but roll his eyes. It’s just getting past nine, and his body is reminding him that it’s time for coffee but he can’t actually fathom getting out of this bed. He wonders if he can persuade Sherlock to stay here while he makes them each a cup, wonders if that will spook Sherlock or break the spell. 

He stretches out a bit himself, feeling his muscles strain--muscles he hadn’t used quite that vigorously in some time--and his joints pop. He’s pushing forty-two but he feels about eighteen right now. “Juuuuuust,” he draw the word out as he flexes his spine, “took me a while to get here.”

“Mmmm.” Sherlock reaches over, won’t stop touching him. Perhaps, John thinks, Sherlock _can’t_ stop touching him. And what a lovely thought that is. 

“But now that I’ve arrived and find I quite like it…” John begins, realizes that what he’s about to say sounds rather serious. He gives himself a moment, considers. He’s never felt as at home anywhere other than 221B, and has never felt _as right_ as he does alongside Sherlock Holmes, in the various roles he’s taken beside Sherlock. Perhaps it’s not jumping the gun to make a statement, finally. 

They watch one another for long moments, John deciding exactly how he wants to phrase things and Sherlock looking on, his apprehension very thinly-veiled. That, in itself, is telling, John realizes. Sherlock has his guard up with nearly everyone, but here, now, in bed, he’s looking at John with such honesty. Perhaps, Sherlock has been waiting to hear this all along. 

John settles against the pillow, brings himself a bit closer to Sherlock; he bites at his bottom lip and steels himself. His voice is soft but clear when he speaks, leaves no room for interpretation. “I spent most of my adult life being transient, by choice and necessity. I’d rather not cock up this settling down business.”

“Oh?” Sherlock asks with very a hint of surprise. 

John rolls his eyes in a spectacular fashion. “Is this the bit where I say I don’t intend to leave 221B again? Ever?” John licks his lips and allows for a little smile, pursed. “Until we want to go elsewhere, that is.”

“Oh,” Sherlock says again, frowning.

“Oh, you dick.” John slides the rest of the way across the bed. “Don’t act like this is a revelation. How many times and versions of ‘Don’t leave ever again, John,’ have you pinned me with over the past few weeks?”

Sherlock blinks and his lips waver and John watches as he releases an enormous grin and a string of high-pitched giggles. He knows then that he’s been had. “You colossal twat!” John says, rolling away and punching Sherlock harder than strictly necessary in his bare bicep. “Just wanted to get me to say it!”

“I admit, I thought it would be rather more difficult, what with your stiff upper lip, military bearing and all of that nonsense.”

“Oh _I’m_ the emotionally-stoic one? Hm?” John means it as a little jab, but it wipes the smirk off of Sherlock’s face.

He clears his throat primly. “That’s not… no, you’re not.”

“Sorry, I-”

Sherlock frowns at himself and retreats, his eyes glazing over just so and John’s stomach flips violently at having wasted what was becoming such a nice moment, at having caused Sherlock to toss his defenses up. Sherlock’s bottom lip is trapped beneath his teeth, being chewed delicately, and it feels like such a long time before Sherlock refocuses his eyes, clears his throat and says primly, “I had my first kiss when I was fourteen years old.”

That stops John’s thought process right in its tracks; his mind goes exceedingly, brilliantly blank for a moment before it kickstarts back to life, memories of having conversations that began this way with past bedfellows blurring across the screen of his mind. It’s almost sweet, it’s almost normal, Sherlock’s sudden revelation. It’s sweetly surprsing, actually, that Sherlock is willingly launching into memories of his childhood, of his romantic past, without prompting from John.

“We’re doing pillow talk, then?” John murmurs, sweeping a hand through the chaos of fringe that’s over Sherlock’s forehead.

There’s silence for a beat--Sherlock looking a bit confused and out of place. “I thought--” his speech is stilted and for a flash John hates himself for making Sherlock so unsure, for being so wrong-footed thus far. “That’s what one did in these sorts of situations.”

John can’t help it, he presses himself up on his forearms and darts over to place a tender, lingering kiss on Sherlock’s lips. There is morning breath and John doesn’t give a toss; when he pulls away Sherlock’s eyes are shining with delight and his mouth curves into a gentle smile. “Go on, then,” John says and resettles himself on his stomach.

Sherlock is all business, his words coming fast and steady, now. “His name was Nathaniel Willows. He was in my maths class and was the best student by far. We studied together at his parents’ home and one evening while dissecting a chapter on integrals he looked at me and said, ‘I’m not supposed to kiss boys,’ just out of the blue, like that. I asked him why and he said that it was what his parents had told him. He’d been caught with a classmate before, you see. It was the eighties and, anyhow, he told me that he wasn’t supposed to kiss boys and I asked him why and told him that his parents’ explanation was rubbish and I kissed him.”

John feels like there’s a cavern of air in his lungs waiting to be expelled. He imagines Sherlock, all awkward-limbs and restrained brilliance, leaning in and just _taking_ his first kiss. Unafraid. It’s an utterly beautiful thought. “You wanted to prove his parents wrong, eh?”

Sherlock says the most wonderful thing. His eyes are clear and his face is open and he says, with a little shrug, “I wanted to kiss him. So I did.”

Sherlock waits and watches John, waits while John digests the information, the morsel that has been presented to him. John wants to touch, to feel Sherlock as he is now, this completely unguarded (as he had been the night previous) just to make certain that it’s all real. His hand slips across the cotton bedsheets and finds Sherlock, right palm curled into a loose fist. 

He intertwines their fingers, carefully. “You knew,” John says, rather than asks. “That young, you knew.”

Sherlock hums in thought. “Fourteen isn’t particularly young, John, to know the type of person you’re attracted to. And it wasn’t a sense of knowing. It just _was_. I didn’t know that there was anything else for me because the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I saw boys kissing girls and girls kissing boys and thought that was all fine, boring and _tedious_ , but it was all natural.” Sherlock looks gone for a beat, as though he’s sunken into a particularly lush memory. “I liked Nathaniel. He was kind and smart. I’d never felt that way about a girl before and I didn’t question it.”

“Yeah?”

“Never. Relationships were never… _I_ was never… it wasn’t something I wanted or needed. But when I felt a pull towards someone, when I felt that, that… incomprehensible feeling that is so, it’s so _entirely_ a romantic cinema cliche,” Sherlock rolls his eyes at his choice of words. “But, alas, yes… it was always a man.”

It settles in the pit of his stomach, that knowledge, that Sherlock had no hesitation about his orientation, that it was right, that it was who he is. John goggles a bit, internally, at Sherlock’s self-awareness, at his bravery, at his constant ability to shirk off anyone who didn’t want him to live his life as he chooses to live it. Another facet of the brilliant prism of Sherlock Holmes.

No wonder John has fallen for him, Christ. 

Sherlock fiddles with the duvet, eyes darting between John’s face and the expanse of pillow just beneath it. “Now is the part where you share something of a similar nature.”

John huffs a laugh, says a bit dreamily, “Oh, is it?”

“Generally that is how pillow talk is navigated, yes.” Sherlock cracks a funny little smile and lets go of John’s hand, burrows beneath the covers, brings them up over his shoulder and moves so that he and John are only a scant few inches apart, as though he’s getting ready for storytime. “Whatever you like.”

“Whatever I like…” John thinks and thinks, wonders what piece of himself he could possibly divulge, what Sherlock doesn’t know about him. “Hm, keeping with the same theme?”

Sherlock shrugs, looks attentive and eager. “If you’d like.”

John takes a breath, heaves it deep into his chest and maneuvers so that he too is resting on his side, facing Sherlock. John has a feeling that Sherlock is at least semi-aware of what he’s about to say, but it’s something he needs to say. Something that he hopes Sherlock will understand. He’s been through war and seen the worst things in the world, but he’s not a wholly brave man. John knows that Sherlock believes John to be the courageous one of the two of them, but it’s not entirely true. There’s a beat where John considers going into more detail, fleshing out the situation for Sherlock, but it would be pointless; none of that really matters in the end. “I think back on it, now, and I think maybe, possibly… do you remember James Sholto?”

“Of course.”

“Right, course. Well, I think I may have been, back, god, it was so many years ago. I think that I may have been in love with him.” John feels a thrill--hot and then cold--race through his entire frame, and he has to steady himself before meeting Sherlock’s gaze. He’s nervous as to what he might find there. 

When he meets Sherlock’s eyes they’re clear and open and expectant; they do not resemble the wreckage that a bomb might have caused, they do not appear awed or dumbstruck or upset. His tongue peeks out to touch his bottom lip and for an instant John almost wants to call Sherlock out on this, _Aren’t you surprised? That I was in love with a man? After all of this “not gay” talk?_ But of course Sherlock sees through him, doesn’t bully him, doesn’t question why he was so adamant about his orientation. It’s not a matter of having known it--this thing about John--all along, no. It’s knowing the sum total of John and all of his components, the visible and the hidden; it’s knowing _all_ of John and questioning none of it.

There’s patience and restraint in Sherlock’s demeanor and John sweeps his gaze up and down the mass of him, sips a little air in through his nose and presses on. “Only person I was really close to over there, really. Not much to tell, of course. But the briefings, the training missions… he’d always find a few minutes in his day to make his way to the medical tent, always… make time to find me.”

“That was good of him,” Sherlock murmurs warmly.

“Yeah, yeah, it was.” John nods, allowing himself to fall back into his own memory, just as Sherlock had before. He remembers sand, grit beneath his fingertips as he allowed for a moment of weakness and touched James’s jaw. He remembers desperately cold nights, sitting across from one another in the canteen and sharing more than just a glance. He remembers that he never had to ask after what James had left at home and that James had never asked him, the both of them alone, clinging to one another desperately but not physically, the both of them too terrified of the stigma to give in. 

Sherlock doesn’t apologize or pander, he doesn’t reach out and try and comfort John, instead he tilts his head as though he’s figured something out and is waiting for John to ask to hear it. 

“Hmm?” John hums, because asking _”What?”_ would seem too demanding, too necessary. 

“That’s not everything,” Sherlock begins and then frowns at himself. “There were others who you…” He trails off, lets it hang, lets John decide what he wants to do with the opening he’s been given: Sherlock knows, but he doesn’t _need to know_. He’s giving John the opportunity to bear more of himself, if he so chooses.

John nods. “Not who I was in love with, no, but there were others, yeah.”

“Stiff upper lip, John Watson. The soldier. Harriet must not have had an easy time of it, in your family.”

Relief surges through John; he doesn’t want to talk about his parents but it’s important to put his feelings into context. Now he doesn’t have to.

They’d loved Harry, they had, but there was always something in their gaze, something gray and distant, as though they believed that there was something _wrong_ with her. It was the same look he’d seen in the eyes of parents of children who’d been diagnosed with untreatable diseases. They had looked at his sister like she was a lost cause and they were just waiting for her to be gone. “Not… not as bad as it could have been,” John says, that stiff-upper-lip mentality bulldozing over the reality. 

Sherlock’s gaze flickers from John’s lips to his eyes. “John.”

John scrunches up his mouth to one side, shrugs weakly against the bed. “It was what it was. It was… as you put it… the eighties.” He shrugs again, to prove his point. “It was what is was,” he says again. “I am what I am and… right now, finally, I’m with you.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock reaches over and slides his palm down John’s arm, allows it to cup his elbow. They stay like that for a long while, John feeling a bit of the unseen weight lift from him in the wake of his admissions. Sherlock’s thumb strokes at his skin gently and he falls into a light doze for a while from the comforting touch.

He’s roused gently a short time later by Sherlock’s voice rumbling, “You are rather a marvel, John Watson.”

“Thanks,” John smiles as his eyes peek open. “I think.”

Sherlock chuckles and heaves himself across the vacant expanse of bed. His arm wraps tight around John’s hips and he pulls John flush up against his chest. John’s chin rests over his right nipple. 

“This is all rather surprising, you know,” John mumbles into his skin, takes a moment to suck in a breath--cotton and Sherlock and fading sex--and relaxes. He’d never imagined he’d be _held_ , coddled, cherished like this, not by Sherlock Holmes. It feels a bit strange, he admits to himself, to be on the receiving end of this sort of affection, but he loves it, having Sherlock draped protectively around him.

Sherlock’s chin knocks against the top of John’s head. “What is?”

“You. You’re all… cuddly. You’re all, I don’t know. Not what I expected.”

There’s a chuckle that reverberates through Sherlock’s chest and shakes John’s body. “Shall I kick you straight out of bed, then?”

“Rather like it here, actually, thanks. I’m simply saying, you’re not… I didn’t expect this.”

“I am a man of surprises, John. You should know this,” he says, the last word trailing into a yawn. 

John peels his eyes open, is met with sparse chest hair and a smattering of freckles. The raised nub of Sherlock’s nipple is just in front of him and he finds himself wanting to worry his teeth there, gently. Now, perhaps, is not the time. They both desperately need a shower, for one, but more than that, John is incredibly content to just relax in the circle of Sherlock’s arms. 

“Mmmm,” John hums, that contentment seeping into the sound. “You are, s’what I like about you.”

When Sherlock responds, it’s so quiet that John nearly misses it. “I like everything about you.”

“Well, then.”

“It’s true.” He sounds very young and very desperate when he says it. “Well, no, that’s a stretch. Not everything. That blue gingham shirt on you, I hate that. And your propensity to overbrew tea…”

“Christ, you’re laying it on rather thick,” John tries, humor laced in his voice. 

They’re quiet for a breath and then Sherlock is detangling himself, putting enough space between them so that he can meet John’s gaze. He swallows thickly and John tracks the movement of his throat, feeling as though he knows something is about to happen. He feels as though Sherlock is about to lob a bombshell of his own.

“John.”

“Yeh. Yeah?”

“It’s you,” he begins, stutters, begins again. “It’s been you for ages. Since… well, for ages. You understand? Yes? That it’s been you.”

“Your…” John searches for the words, works his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He recalls something that Sherlock said to him ages ago. “Conductor of light.”

“That,” Sherlock nods, slicks his upper lip over his lower. “And much, much more.”

John sets his jaw and squares his shoulders and meets Sherlock’s gaze without hesitation. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock cuts him abruptly off, his voice even and crisp, as though he’s explaining the finer points of a case. “For years. Before Mary, before Baskerville, before... “ Sherlock blinks away, glances towards the window and finally ducks back to meet John. He looks unmoored and lost and terrifically sad. “I held you in my arms, John,” Sherlock says, a tenuous little sentence. His voice changes, dips, is quieter, “I taught you how to dance with her.”

The tenor and tone, it wraps around John’s heart and the surge of affection he feels causes tears to prick at his eyes. John sucks in a soldierly, steadying breath. “I don’t want to talk-”

Sherlock’s voice is all business once more. “I held you in my arms and pretended that none of it was happening. Foolish, I know, but I imagined you were there because you wanted to be.”

John blinks hard twice and maneuvers his jaw as though to better speak his words. “That’s the past.”

“It is,” Sherlock agrees and nods once. “But that doesn’t make it any less true, that I had wanted you, that I had… intimate affection for you even then. That I was a selfish man, harboring the hope that it would all fall apart. It’s a strange thing, this… love. I hadn’t experienced it until that very moment, waltzing with you, wishing your life would fall to spectacular pieces so that I could keep you.”

The word--love--it kicks all of the air from John’s lungs and leaves him with a topsy-turvy sense of vertigo although he’s lying down. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

Sherlock purses his lips and ruminates on that for a long moment. “Yes, it’s terrible.”

They stare at each other and then John is moving, pressing Sherlock back into the pillow and kissing him. It’s possessive and deep, the hand that isn’t keeping his balance going to Sherlock’s face. He kisses Sherlock desperately, wants Sherlock to feel John claiming him, keeping him. “Jesus Sherlock,” his mouth smears into the corner of Sherlock’s lips. “We’ve put each other through too much.”

“Maybe,” Sherlock agrees, but guides their mouths back together. His hips roll up and his legs fall open, allowing John to rest in the vee of his thighs. Their pelvises make contact; the neither of them is hard, but the contact is electric and John feels a rush of anticipation and pleasure zing down his spine. 

Sherlock’s hands settle on the small of John’s back and their kisses ebb and flow, the sharp edge of passion wearing away until they’re snogging lazily, holding one another close. They part when things become a bit damp beneath the covers, when the sweat begins to make them sticky and uncomfortable.

John rolls to his side--his front smashed up against Sherlock’s hip--and settles his palm on the warm, damp concave of Sherlock’s belly. “I could stay here all day.”

“Mmmph, I could as well. Though I need the loo, and coffee.”

“Coffee, yes.”

“And perhaps a shower,” Sherlock’s lips twist in something like distaste as he lifts the bedclothes and glances below.

John agrees, “Couldn’t hurt.”

“But I don’t want to move, why _is_ that?” Sherlock asks, his voice honestly searching.

“I don’t know, but for me, it seems exceedingly, stupidly simple.” John presses a kiss to Sherlock’s pectoral. “Because we’re happy, the two of us, right here in this bed. We don’t want to move because everything is so good, right now, here.”

“Ah,” Sherlock drawls, dragging the blunt fingernail of his middle finger over John’s shoulder.

“I like being in this bed with you,” John continues, dotting another kiss on Sherlock’s skin. “I like how you look when you wake up, and I like how you feel and I like how you _fuck_ ,” John says, his voice dropping an octave.

“How _we_ fuck,” Sherlock corrects, breathily.

“Mmmmyeah,” John agrees with a lazy smile. “I think it can be that easy, can’t it?”

“What can?”

“That we’re happy, in bed, together.” John smiles, amends. “That we’re happy together.”

Sherlock grins down at him, “Oh god, how _boring_.”

“Yeh,” John agrees and rolls from the bed, pulls his jeans on without bothering with his pants. “Tell you what, I’ll make us some coffee and you can stay here.”

“That sounds good.” John watches as Sherlock snuggles down into the bed, his arm sweeping over the expanse that John has left epmty; it settles there.

Something twists pleasantly in John’s gut. He swallows. “And I’ll grab the first shower and afterwards we’ll strip down the bed.”

Sherlock’s face is in the pillow when he begins to protest. “But-”

“And we can work on defiling my bedroom while your bedclothes are in the wash, hm?”

There is silence, and then Sherlock is peeling back the duvet so that John is able to view his wolfish grin. “That--my spectacular _conductor of light_ \--” Sherlock jests, “is quite possibly the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“Ta,” John says, proud and amused, and leaves, barefoot, to go make them some coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to [Amanda](http://astudyinrose.tumblr.com/), [Allison](http://wearitcounts.tumblr.com) and [Erin](http://thescienceofobsession.tumblr.com) for all of their hard work on a piece that was quite a trainwreck until they came along.


End file.
